This process has had two important effects on the evolution and location of life on the earth. First, the location of continents and oceanic basins greatly influence the earth's climate and thus help determine where plants and animals can live. Second, the movement of continents has allowed species to move, adapt to new environments, and form new species through natural selection.
這個過程(上一段所提到的板塊運動)有兩個很重要的因素
在引響地球上生物的演化及位置。第一個是因為陸地跟海洋的
位置引響了地球的氣候，因此幫助生物決定他們可以生存的地
點；第二個則是因為陸地的移動使物種也隨之移動，並使物種
適應新的環境，進而透過天擇形成新的物種。
Earthquakes can also affect biological evolution by separating and isolating populations of species. Over long periods of time, this can lead to the formation of new species in response to new environmental conditions. Volcanic eruptions affect biological evolution by destroying habitats and reducing or wiping out populations of species.
2008-12-12
2008-11-08
第八週 每人翻一段 56-1-3
Terrestrial producers remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and aquatic producers remove it from the water. These producers then use photosynthesis to convert CO2, into complex carbohydrates such as glucose(C6H12O6).
陸地上的生產者從大氣中轉換二氧化碳，
而水中的生產者則是從水裡轉換二氧化碳。
這些生產者藉由光合作用來將二氧化碳轉變成碳水化合物（如葡萄糖）。
3-7 How Do Scientists Study Ecosystems?
科學家們是如何研究生態系統的？
『有些科學家直接研究自然』
科學家會實地探勘，到田園、雨林以及沙漠測量整個結構，
以了解生態系統。
『有些科學家在實驗室裡研究生態系統』
科學家會在實驗室裡以模擬環境的方式來了解生態系統。
『有些科學家利用模型模擬生態系統』
地理學家發展出模型模擬出生態系，而電腦繪圖就可以幫助
科學家了解整個複雜的生態系統。
『而我們必須更去了解世界生態系統的健康』
我們需要世界生態系統的基礎資料，來得知他們如何改變和發展，
並要制定有效的政策來防止及減緩生態系統退化。
3-6 What Happens to Matter in an Ecosystem?
物質在生態系統中如何傳遞？
『在生物圈以及生態系統內的物質循環』
養分的移動是透過空氣、水、土壤、岩石以及生物體，
我們稱此為【生物、地理、化學性循環】。
『在生物圈內水的循環』
水循環是由太陽能所控制的。
基本上，水的循環是經由【蒸發、凝結及降水】所構成。
『在生物圈內碳的循環』
碳可以構成許多種物質，像是蛋白質、ＤＮＡ或其他有機體。
碳循環是以二氧化碳為主，近年來，二氧化碳成為溫室效應的
主因。
『在生物圈內氮的循環』
氮在空氣中佔了百分之七十八，它可以構成蛋白質、維他命…
等重要物質。
『在生物圈內磷的循環』
磷為構成牙齒及骨頭的重要成分，且它的循環不含海洋最低處
的沉澱物。
3-5 What Happens to Energy in an Ecosystem?
能量在生態系統中如何轉換？
『能量透過食物鏈及食物網流動』
能量會透過食物網及食物鍊進行交換、流動。
但是每經過一層，可用的能量就會減少，
能夠傳遞下去的大約只有十分之一！
3-4 What Is Biodiversity and Why Is It Important?
什麼是生物多樣性？ 還有它為什麼重要？
『生物多樣性』就是下列的多樣性
1.物種多樣性
2.基因多樣性
3.生態系統多樣性
4.能量流動、養分循環的功能多樣性
生物多樣性的重要性？
1.幫助我們持續生命(它提供我們食物、木頭、纖維、能量…)
2.保存重要的物質(像是空氣、水、土壤、可以處理廢棄物跟控制物種數的害蟲)
3-3 What Are the Major Components of an Ecosystem?
生態系統主要是由什麼所構成？
生態系統是由生物及非生物所組成的。
在一個特定環境中不斷的進行物質及能量的交換，
通過物質流及能量流的連接而形成的統一整體，
但其範圍沒有固定大小。
3-2 What Keeps Us and Other Organisms Alive?
什麼能夠使我們和其他生物持續生命？
把來自太陽的能量，由原本高頻率能量經由生物體間的互相轉換成
較低頻率的能量，進而分散成空氣或水，返回太空中。
2-5 How Can We Use Matter and Energy More Sustainbly?
我們能夠如何使用物質以及使能源更永續？
1.節約能源
2.回收、重覆利用
3.尋找可替代的能源
4.將自然科學的議題轉移到永續性的社會
2-4 What is Energy and How Can It Change Its Form?
何為能量？ 如何改變它？
『能量來自很多種形式』
1.動能(kinetic energy，像是風、流動的水、電子流動…)
2.位能(potential energy，例如在手上的小石頭、未點燃的火柴…)
『能量轉換必須遵守兩個定律』
1.熱力學第一定律
能量在轉換的時候，不會被創造或被減少(能量不滅)。
2.熱力學第二定律
能量轉換的過程中，有部分(少許)的能量會以熱的形式散失。
2-3 How Can Matter Change?
如何改變物質？
『物質變化分為三項』
1.物理變化
2.化學變化
3.核變化(包含核融合、核分裂、放射線的衰變)
『我們不能創造或減少物質』
物質經由物理變化及化學變化的改變，並不能消滅或創造物質，
就是所謂的【質量不滅定律】，但是核反應卻例外。
2008-11-06
10/22 - 潮流也要做環保
史丹利來學校演講了!!!
這真的太酷了~
雖然這次標語是『潮流也要做環保』，
不過我倒是覺得『環保也可以很潮流』這樣貼切多了：﹚
聽到史丹利介紹了好多好多關於環保的潮流商品，
環保不再是我們以前所想像的那樣–【有點俗、只能限定某些範圍】！
以前的我，
對於環保的概念就只是「綠色、回收」，
聽了史丹利的演講，
知道其實環保也可以帶動流行跟新潮！
無論是環保Ｔ–ｓｈｉｒｔ、環保袋甚至是小草戒指，
都不再像是以前那樣很死板，
由不同設計大師設計出來的Ｔ–ｓｈｉｒｔ、環保袋…
創造出更多更新潮的商品！
也讓越來越多年輕人重視環保的概念！
當然，
並不能一味的跟隨潮流買環保袋、環保Ｔ，
以為那就是「環保」…
而是要身體力行去做環保，
像是出去買東西一定要帶環保袋，
或是平時就要隨身攜帶環保筷、水瓶，
夏天熱了毛巾跟手帕也是最好用的選擇，
不然衛生紙一張一張抽還蠻浪費的！
總之…
做環保跟追流行，
兩者兼具最棒啦！
︰﹚
2008-09-26
1-2 How Can Environmentally Sustainable Societies Grow Economically?
exponentially ﹥以指數方式
millennium ﹥千年期
strain ﹥濫用
strategies ﹥策略、對策
destitute ﹥缺乏的、貧困的
scarcities ﹥缺乏、稀少、罕見
survival ﹥幸存、殘存
equipped ﹥使有能力、使有資格
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
1-2 How Can Environmentally Sustainable SocietiesGrow Economically?
CONCEPT 1-2 Societies can become more environmentally sustainable through economicdevelopment dedicated to improving the quality of life for everyone without degrading theearth’s life-support systems.
There Is a Wide Economic Gap between Rich and Poor Countries
Economic growth is an increase in a nation’s outputof goods and services. It is usually measured by thepercentage of change in a country’s gross domesticproduct (GDP): the annual market value of all goodsand services produced by all firms and organizations,foreign and domestic, operating within a country.Changes in a country’s economic growth per personare measured by per capita GDP: the GDP divided bythe total population at midyear.
The value of any country’s currency changes whenit is used in other countries. Because of such differences,a basic unit of currency in one country can buymore of a particular thing than the basic unit of currencyof another country can buy. Consumers in thefirst country are said to have more purchasing powerthan consumers in the second country have. To helpwith comparing countries, economists use a tool calledpurchasing power parity (PPP). By combining per capitaGDP and PPP, for any given country, they arrive at a percapita GDP-PPP—a measure of the amount of goodsand services that a country’s average citizen could buyin the United States.
While economic growth provides people with moregoods and services, economic development has thegoal of using economic growth to improve living standards.The United Nations classifies the world’s countriesas economically developed or developing based primarilyon their degree of industrialization and their percapita GDP-PPP (see Figure 2 on p. S8 in Supplement 3).The developed countries (with 1.2 billion people) includethe United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, NewZealand, and most of Europe. Most are highly industrializedand have a high per capita GDP-PPP.
All other nations (with 5.5 billion people) are classifiedas developing countries, most of them in Africa,Asia, and Latin America. Some are middle-income, moderatelydeveloped countries such as China, India, Brazil,Turkey, Thailand, and Mexico. Others are low-income,least developed countries where per capita GDP-PPP issteadily declining. These 49 countries with 11% of theworld’s population include Angola, Congo, Belarus,Nigeria, Nicaragua, and Jordan.
According to the United Nations, such destitute countriesare in a desperate cycle of steadily worsening extremepoverty, disease, scarcities of key resources (suchas water, cropland, firewood, and fish), dysfunctional government, violence, and social chaos. To survive,many of these counties are cutting down trees, depletingtopsoil, and consuming natural resources they needfor future survival. This competition for increasinglyscarce resources can lead to civil violence, which canfurther impoverish a country. Figure 2 on p. S8 in Supplement3 is a map of high, upper middle, lower middle,and low-income countries.
Figure 1-5 compares some key characteristics of developedand developing countries. About 97% of theprojected increase in the world’s population between2007 and 2050 is expected to take place in developingcountries, which are least equipped to handle suchlarge population increases.
We live in a world of haves and have-nots. Despite a40-fold increase in economic growth since 1900, more than half of the people in the world live in extreme poverty andtry to survive on a daily income of less than $2. And one of everysix people, classified as desperately poor, struggle to survive onless than $1 a day. (All dollar figures are in U.S. dollars).
Some economists call for continuing conventionaleconomic growth, which has helped increase food supplies,allowed people to live longer, and stimulated massproduction of an array of useful goods and services formany people. They also see such growth as a cure forpoverty as some of the resulting increase in wealthtrickles down to countries near the bottom of the economicladder.
Other environmental and ecological economists,call for us to put much greater emphasis on environmentally sustainable economic development. This involves usingpolitical and economic systems to discourage environmentallyharmful and unsustainable forms of economicgrowth that degrade natural capital, and to encourageenvironmentally beneficial and sustainable forms ofeconomic development that help sustain natural capital(Concept 1-2).
2008-09-22
1-1 What Is an Environmentally Sustainable Society?
Sustainable ﹥能維持的;能保持在一定水平的
degrading ﹥降低品格的
utterly ﹥完全地
interdisciplinary ﹥各學科間的
integrate ﹥使完整
demography ﹥ ﹥人口統計學
ethics ﹥倫理學
ecosystems ﹥自然生態系統
environmentalism ﹥環境保護論
dedicated ﹥專注的;獻身的
realm ﹥界,領域;範圍
indefinitely ﹥不明確地,模糊地
components ﹥構成要素;零件;成分
classified ﹥分類的,類別的
renewable ﹥可更新的;可恢復的;可繼續的
purification ﹥洗淨,淨化
photosynthesis ﹥光合作用
indirect ﹥間接的;非直接相關的;次要的
residues ﹥殘餘,剩餘;渣滓
mature ﹥成熟的;釀熟的
replenish ﹥補充
Implementing ﹥履行;實施;執行
regulations ﹥規章;規則
conflicts ﹥衝突
shift ﹥轉換
scientific ﹥科學的
inventing ﹥發明,創造
innovative ﹥創新的
vote ﹥選舉,投票
Regardless ﹥不顧一切地;不管怎樣地;無論如何
ultimate ﹥最後的,最終的
lottery ﹥運氣,難算計的事
withdrawal ﹥收回;撤回
bankrupt ﹥破產的
depleting ﹥用盡
adequate ﹥適當的
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
1-1 What Is an Environmentally Sustainable Society?
CONCEPT 1-1A Our lives and economies depend on energy from the sun (solar capital)and natural resources and natural services (natural capital) provided by the earth.
CONCEPT 1-1B Living sustainably means living off the earth’s natural income without depletingor degrading the natural capital that supplies it.
Environmental Science Is a Study of Connections in Nature
The environment is everything around us. It includes all of the living and the nonliving things (air, water,and energy) with which we interact. Despite our many scientific and technological advances, we are utterly dependent on the environment for air, water, food, shelter, energy, and everything else we need to stay alive and healthy. As a result, we are part of and notapart from the rest of nature.
This textbook is an introduction to environmental science, an interdisciplinary study of humanity’s relationships with the earth’s living and nonliving things. It integrates information and ideas from the natural sciences,such as biology, chemistry, and geology; the socialsciences, such as economics, demography (the study of populations), and political science; and the humanities,including philosophy and ethics (Figure 1-2). The goalsof environmental science are to learn how nature works,how the environment affects us, how we affect the environment,and how to deal with environmental problems and live more sustainably.
Ecology, a biological science that studies the relationships between organisms, or living things, and their environment, plays an important role in environmentalscience. A major focus of ecology is the study of ecosystems. An ecosystem is a set of organisms interacting with one another and with their environment of nonliving matter and energy within a defined area.
We should not confuse environmental science and ecology with environmentalism, a social movement dedicated to protecting the earth’s air, water, soil, natural cleansing and recycling systems, and other components of its life-support systems for us and otherspecies. Environmentalism is practiced more in the political arena than in the realm of science.
Sustainability Is the Central Theme of This Book
Sustainability is the ability of the earth’s various natural systems and human cultural systems and economies to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely. It is the central theme of this book,and its components provide this book’s subthemes.
Let us look more closely at sustainability. A critical component is natural capital—the natural resources and natural services provided by nature that keep us and other species alive and support our economies (Figure1-3, p. 8). Natural resources are materials and energy in nature that are essential or useful to humans. These resources are often classified as renewable (suchas air, water, soil, plants, and wind) or nonrenewable(such as copper, oil, and coal). Natural services are functions of nature, such as purification of air and water,which support life and human economies.
A critical natural service is nutrient cycling, the circulation of chemicals necessary for life from the environment(mostly soil and water) through organisms and back to the environment (Figure 1-4, p. 9). Without this service, life as we know it could not exist.
Natural capital is supported by solar capital: energy from the sun that warms the planet and supports photosynthesis—a complex chemical process that plants use to provide food for themselves and for us and other animals. This direct input of solar energy also produces indirect forms of renewable solar energy such as wind, flowing water, and biofuels made from plants and plant residues. Thus, our lives and economies depend on energy from the sun (solar capital) and natural resources and natural services (natural capital) provided by the earth (Concept 1-1A).
A second component of sustainability—and another subtheme of this text—is to recognize that many human activities can degrade natural capital by using normally renewable resources faster than nature can renew them. For example, in parts of the world we are clearing mature forests much faster than nature can replenish them.We are also harvesting many species of ocean fish faster than they can replenish themselves.
This leads us to the third component of sustainability: the scientific search for solutions to these and other environmental problems. Implementing such solutions involves using our economic and political systems. For example, scientific solutions might be to stop clearcutting biologically diverse, mature forests, and to harvest fish species no faster than they can replenish themselves. Implementing such solutions would probably require government laws and regulations.
The search for solutions often involves conflicts. Thus, another component of the shift toward sustainability involves trying to resolve these conflicts by making trade-offs, or compromises. To provide wood and paper, for example, paper companies can plant tree farms (see photo 1, p. vi) in areas that have already been cleared or degraded, in exchange for preserving mature forests.
Any shift toward environmental sustainability should be based on scientific concepts and results that are widely accepted by experts in a particular field, as discussed in more detail in Chapter 2. In making such a shift, individuals matter—another subtheme of this book. Individuals vary widely in their abilities, but everyone can contribute to finding and implementing solutions to environmental problems. Some people are good at thinking of new ideas and inventing innovative technological solutions. Others are good at putting political pressure on government officials and business leaders, acting either alone or in groups to implement those solutions. Still others know how to be wise consumers who vote with their pocketbooks to help bring about environmental and social change. Regardless, every individualis as important as the next in bringing about a shift toward sustainability.
Environmentally Sustainable Societies Protect Natural Capital and Live Off Its Income
The ultimate goal is an environmentally sustainable society—one that meets the current and future basic resource needs of its people in a just and equitable manner without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their basic needs.
Imagine you win $1 million in a lottery. If you invest this money and earn 10% interest per year, you will have a sustainable income of $100,000 a year that you can live off of indefinitely without depleting your capital. However, if you spend $200,000 per year while allowing interest to accumulate on what is left after each withdrawal, your capital of $1 million will be gone early in the seventh year. Even if you spend only $110,000 per year and allow the interest to accumulate, you will be bankrupt early in the eighteenth year.
The lesson here is an old one: Protect your capital and live off the income it provides. Deplete or waste your capital, and you will move from a sustainable to an unsustainable lifestyle.
The same lesson applies to our use of the earth’s natural capital—the global trust fund that nature provides for us. Living sustainably means living off natural income, the renewable resources such as plants, animals, and soil provided by natural capital. This meansnot depleting or degrading the earth’s natural capital that supplies this income, and providing the human population with adequate and equitable access to this natural capital and natural income for the foreseeable future (Concept 1-1B).
The bad news is that, according to a growing body of scientific evidence, we are living unsustainably by wasting, depleting, and degrading the earth’s natural capital at an exponentially accelerating rate (Core Case Study*). In 2005, the United Nations (U.N.) released its Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. According to this four-year study by 1,360 experts from 95 countries, human activities are degrading or overusing about 62% of the earth’s natural putting such a strain on the natural functions of Easervices (Figure 1-3). In its summary statement, the report warned that “human activity is rth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted. ”The good news is that the report suggests we have the knowledge and tools to conserve the planet’s natural capital, and it describes common-sense strategies for doing this.
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